With Halloween finally behind us (at least for another eleven months), I am reminded of the one article regarding this festival that stood out most to me in the slurry of bickering over its status in the shari’ah. Rather than delving straight into the matter of its permissibility, its roots and origins, or what constitutes ‘imitation’ of disbelieving people, the author, shaykh Abu Eesa Niamatullah, instead asks the reader to contemplate the philosophical underpinnings of Halloween; what it means to trick, to celebrate mischief, and most importantly, how our understanding of evil has changed in the 21st century. As the shaykh himself asks, ‘how did we allow evil to become so sweet?’
What left the greatest impression on me from the entire piece was the emphasis on how our understanding of who the shaytan (devil) is has been warped by modernity, and how popular culture has undoubtedly played a major hand in this.
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